Welcome

I'm Nichola Hawkins. I'm currently a post-doctoral research scientist at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) in Cambridge, UK. I work on the recent evolution of fungal diseases of cereal crops, in response to selection by fungicides, and have recently started working on a project looking at effector evolution in a bacterial pathogen of fruit trees. This field has provided wonderful opportunities to apply and further my knowledge of molecular and evolutionary biology in an area that contributes to food security and sustainability.

I am especially interested in the underlying evolutionary drivers of resistance, including the role of functional constraints, epistasis and trade-offs, and applying the concept of the adaptive landscape, to address the question of why resistance evolution has been more predictable and repeatable in some cases than others, and how this relates to wider fundamental questions regarding predictability in evolution.

Broader interests for future research include:

  • Applying evolutionary biology to the grand challenges of food security, protecting biodiversity and improving human health;

  • Addressing fundamental evolutionary questions, especially those relating to the repeatability/predictability of molecular evolution, using agricultural or microbial systems;

  • Plant pathology and crop protection research including potential evolutionary perspectives, such as host-pathogen coevolution, gene family phylogenetics or evolutionary drivers of emerging threats;

  • Applying knowledge from five decades of fungicide resistance evolution to the resistance risk assessment and sustainable deployment of new crop protection methods.

You can use the menu on the left to read some background information about me, details of my current and previous research, publication list, and an overview of my teaching and science communication activities; and to contact me.


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If you are looking for my wild flower quiz sheets and other botanical educational activities, go to "Botanical educational resources".